Things change by the day in India, perhaps more so than on any other tour. Injuries progress towards healing, others occur and always a spot of indisposition lurks just around the corner. It was after tea that the umpires finally conceded that, given the status of the match, it would be almost an act of cruelty to keep England's wicketkeeper Matt Prior on the field against Haryana.

Technically, substitute keepers are not allowed but every time Prior bent over to ready himself for the next delivery was an accident waiting to happen given his stomach upset, and an act of optimism. Finally the umpires, via the Board of Control for Cricket in India and the match referee, and probably after the intervention of the team director, Andy Flower, relented mercifully and allowed Jonny Bairstow to come on in his stead.

Prior will recover soon enough and be back on a full diet. But as he was leaving the field something that may yet prove to be of the utmost significance was taking place simultaneously. Steven Finn had arrived at the ground during the tea interval, donned his pads and headed to the nets beyond the seven-foot high perimeter wall of the B ground adjoining Ahmedabad's Test match stadium. The intention, though, was to go beyond improving his forward defensive.

When first he felt the muscle twang in his thigh during the first match of the tour, the prognosis was not good, certainly in terms of the first Test. But so rapidly has he progressed, unexpectedly so, that on the first day of this match, during his post-tea training session he was able to sprint without discomfort or adverse reaction at a pace that was faster than his gallop to the crease.

The upshot from this is that after his batting, he marked out his full run and proceeded to bowl three overs from it, not at maximum, but with the encouragement to go up to around 80% of his full pace. His participation in the first Test, which at first had seemed a lost cause, may yet rest on this and in particular whether the thigh can cope with the gather and leap into the crease. Instead, providing his lack of match bowling is not considered to his detriment, he has been placed firmly in contention for the first Test.

Against that, it is Stuart Broad whose chances of making the team have diminished slightly despite the fact that the bruise on his left heel is considered low grade, the least troublesome kind. Broad's delivery stride, in which he does bang his foot down on the point of his heel at an angle of 45 degrees, does not help as it increases the impact where others whose feet land flat, or even on the ball of the foot, do not feel it. Broad is also being monitored closely now.

This made it intriguing watching the efforts of the England bowlers on a pitch that remains very good (for batting), and against a side that, while youthful, are not depleted from the one that made the semi-finals of the first-class Ranji Trophy last year. It proved hard work but England will have been pleased with the way that they managed to build some pressure, chip away, and gradually gather some reward.

The new ball offered very little in the way of swing or seam either for Graham Onions or Tim Bresnan, who would be the candidates to replace either of Finn or Broad if necessary. Nor did the ball reverse-swing until late in the day, although England's cross-seam bowling in the early part of the innings, once orthodox swing had been ruled out, was a standard way of trying to hasten the ball into suitable condition. This in itself was instructive for the outfield on this nursery ground is lush and that in the main stadium appears to be even more so.

From it all, though, it was Bresnan of the two who emerged with, if not the most economical figures, then the wickets. The first, that of the opener Niti Saini, was flogged from the pitch, an excellent bouncer followed by another ball back of a length which the batsman poked to point. Samit Patel then chipped in with the wicket of Sunny Singh, well caught at slip by Jonathan Trott – the first of two excellent catches by him – following a feisty second-wicket partnership of 97 between Singh and Rahul Dewan, who finished the day on 77 of Haryana's 172 for four. The little reverse that Bresnan did manage in the final session got rid of Abhimanyu Khod to Trott's second slip catch, while Monty Panesar finally got some reward for his attrition getting Sachin Rana lbw.

In the morning, England extended their innings to 521 and the point of lunch, with Patel completing his third half-century in his three innings on the tour, the first of which was converted to a century, and Prior making 41. The innings did subside rapidly as the scoring accelerated, and the last five wickets went down in eight overs for only 14 runs, the chief beneficiary being the off-spinner Jayant Yadav.